News stories from Wednesday July 16, 1975

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

The Soviet and American spacecraft Soyuz and Apollo shifted smoothly into new orbits in preparation for their link-up shortly after midday tomorrow. The Soviet astronauts corrected the television camera malfunction that had prevented their being viewed during takeoff. The American team successfully retracted a docking probe that could have interfered with preparations for the meeting. [New York Times] The Municipal Assistance Corporation has been told by its underwriting banks that they will be unable under present circumstances to sell its next $1 billion bond issue to meet New York City's expenses in August, corporation sources said. It has appealed to Mayor Beame for "drastic actions" -- possibly a freeze on all city wages -- as the only way it will be able to issue the bonds. The wage freeze idea was raised Monday evening when Mayor Beame met with Felix Rohatyn, a director of M.A.C. When Mayor Beame rejected it as impractical, one source said, Mr. Rohatyn asked him to come to a meeting of all the directors scheduled for tomorrow. A corporation source called it a crisis situation, taking the city back to where it stood in May and June unless the municipal government acted decisively. [New York Times] The Defense Department has concluded that the Navy has understated the long-term cost of the F-18, which was to be its "low-cost fighter" for the 1980's, by at least $1.6 billion. The finding would make it necessary either to raise Navy budgets, which are already running $2 billion short of the projected costs of its five-year shipbuilding program, or to scrap the F-18 program and develop a lower-cost plane. [New York Times] Payments by the Exxon Corporation's Italian affiliate to Italian political parties to get specific legislative benefits from the Italian government were disclosed in a 1972 report by auditors within Exxon that was made public at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on multi-national corporations. The payments, approved by higher Exxon officials, were tied by amount to corporate objectives such as the interest-free use of excise taxes collected in Italy. [New York Times] Canada's Minister for Energy, Mines and Resources, Donald Macdonald, announced that exports of natural gas to the United States would be reduced because of an impending shortage that will also restrict Canadian users. He said the cutbacks would be taken in consultation with Washington so that American consumers dependent on Canadian supplies would be protected as far as possible. [New York Times] The Soviet Union has agreed to buy 3.2 million metric tons of wheat -- about 117 million bushels -- from two major United States corporations. Cook Industries of Memphis will supply 2 million metric tons, or 73 million bushels, and Cargill, Inc., of Minneapolis will provide 1.2 million tons, or 44 million bushels. The value of the sales was not announced, but such a transaction would be worth abut $470 million, on the basis of current prices of wheat for future delivery and shipping charges. [New York Times] Secretary of State Kissinger said in Milwaukee that the "extremely unfortunate" Egyptian threat not to renew the mandate of the United Nations peace-keeping force in Sinai would complicate the American efforts to achieve a new Egyptian-Israeli agreement. He seemed exasperated by Egypt's move, which, he said, had surprised the United States. [New York Times] The Popular Democratic party withdrew from Portugal's coalition cabinet as the Socialists did last week, widening the breach between the ruling armed forces and the exponents of parliamentary democracy. The Communists and a group allied with them remain, but the armed forces are now expected to form a non-party cabinet. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 872.11 (-9.70, -1.10%)
S&P Composite: 94.61 (-1.00, -1.05%)
Arms Index: 1.73

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	529	5.39
Declines	968	17.09
Unchanged	362	2.77
Total Volume		25.25

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
July 15, 1975	881.81	95.61	28.34
July 14, 1975	875.86	95.19	21.90
July 11, 1975	871.09	94.66	22.21
July 10, 1975	871.87	94.81	28.88
July 9, 1975	871.87	94.80	26.35
July 8, 1975	857.79	93.39	18.99
July 7, 1975	861.08	93.54	15.85
July 3, 1975	871.79	94.36	19.00
July 2, 1975	870.38	94.18	18.53
July 1, 1975	877.42	94.85	20.39